Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige, on Thursday,
said that the demand of labour over the implementation of the new
minimum wage would cost the Federal Government N580 billion annually.
According to TheNation, Ngige said that such adjustment, in line
with labour’s demand, was not sustainable as the government would have
to lay off some workers to be able to meet their demands.
The minister said government cannot afford that kind of money now,
adding that the focus of President Muhammadu Buhari’s government is on
workers on grade level 1 step 1 and level 6 step 1 where the impact of
the wage would be felt by workers.
The Minister disclosed these on Thursday in Abuja when the
leadership of United Labour Congress (ULC) led by its President, Mr Joe
Ajeiro, paid him a courtesy at the ministry.
While urging workers to show more understanding to the plight of
the federal government, Ngige said the current economic realities, may
make the new wage bill not feasible.
He said that the government was avoiding a situation where it would
have to lay off workers, adding that this would add to the burden of
the citizenry.
Ngige appealed to the labour to accept the consequential adjustment
from levels 7 to 17, adding that the federal government had only three
months left to implement the new minimum wage.
He said the government would not tell the labour leadwra what it
could not pay, stating that no worker deserved to be owed salary.
The minister said: “There is no problem with disagreement in
the labour system, when can sometimes disagree to later agree, on the
national minimum wage, it will translate to an additional N580billion if
government agrees to the consequential adjustment labour is proposing.
“Government cannot afford that kind of money now, besides the
administration of President Muhammadu Buhari is more interested in the
lowest cadre of workers which are those on grade level 1 step 1 and
level 6 step 1, these are the ones who the N30,000 will have greater
impact on.
“Government has done their own homework and brought out what
they can use to defend this consequential adjustment. Grade 1 to 6 does
not have any problem, but 7 to 14 band and 15 to 17 band this is where
we have the problem.
“Once you finish a minimum wage and go into consequential
adjustment you are trying to reach a collective bargaining agreement and
once you are trying to reach and once you are the principle of ability
to pay comes in.
“So if you push government to go and accede to an increment
which its resources cannot accommodate, you are indirectly asking them
to retrench workers so that the few that are remaining will get this big
big money.
“We don’t want that, from 2015 the president has made it clear
that he is not out to inflict pains on Nigerians and that he does not
want to create unemployment but even at that our increase in population
is galloping and our resources is not consequentialy increasing to meet
up that is why we have a lot of unemployed youths on the street today.
“We need to arrive at an agreement as soon as possible so that
we can use the 2019 budget allocation to deframe this consequential
adjustment because it will be bad if we are unable to do it and we
finish this financial year by December because the budget circle is
going to return to January/December 2020 so we we have three months only
before this recurrent funds as well are swept back into government
treasury, that is the law.”
He regretted the inability of the joint negotiating team of both
the government and labour to agree on the consequential adjustments,
insisting that the new wage may become bloated by workers on grade
levels 7-14 and 15-17.
Already organised labour has started mobilising their members to embark on strike on the 16th of this month.
Ajaero, in his remarks, appealed to the minister for prompt payment
of the new minimum wage, stressing that the private sector must also be
compelled to pay the N30, 000 wage.
He said that there was need to review obsolete laws that were not
in tune with present reality, adding that a situation where some private
sectors paid their employees N10,000 and N15,000 was unacceptable.
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